The Portland daily press., 1887-05-09


But the tide has turned and the population
Oh Maine Is now increasing. We have fol
years been furnishing young men anC
women to the people of the Western States
to-day they are remaining at home. / know
that 1t has been the custom during politica
| campaigns for some speakers to picture tC
their audiences the poverty stricken eondi
tion of our State; to paint in glowing color.
high taxation, the great burden Of indebted
ness and all the ills and woes that come from
adepressed condition. But this is only the
| rambling talk of wild and unrestrained i'm.
| agination. The picture is not true one.
The entire indebtedness Of Maine to-day
including State, county and municipal in
| debtedness, is little less than thirteen mil
lions OF dollars; while it has in its savings
banks thirty-six millions, and 1t has invested
| IN national banks eleven millions Of dollars.
Maine has ceased to be exclusively an agri-
| cultural State, although it has invested in
farms and livestock more than one hundred
and twenty millions Of dollars. Its orchard
| products, the number of pounds of wool, the
value of its lumber products, the number Of
tons Of hay raised, the number of bushels of
potatoes raised, the annual value of its live
stock, exceed that Of any Of the other New
England States. And one thing should be
emphasized, which is great tribute to the
State, that of the entire sixty-five thousand
farms of Maine, over sixty-two thousand of
them are cultivated by their owners.
In manufacturing, Maine has made rapid
strides in the past twenty years, and it has
to-day over fifty millions of dollars employed
in its notwithstanding interests, giving en-
ployment to thirty-six thousand persons, and
paying out annually in wages over fourteen
millions of dollars, producing products to
the value Of more than eighty millions !;
and this in diversified interests. Our
manufacturing is not confined to any
one line. 1t Is cotton, lumber, WOOL
en- goods, tanned leather, paper, foun-
dry and machine shop. products, boots
and shoes, Touring and grist mill products,
lime, canned goods, shipbuilding, printing
and publishing, agricultural implements,
dyeing and finishing textiles and mixed tex
tiles. The wooden industry ranks next to
the manufacturing of lumber. There are to-
day, situated within the borders of our
State. sixty-fve woolen mills, producing as
good cloth as can be made anywhere on this
continent; and our cotton products are sold
in every market of the world. Slate quar-
rles, which will be OF immense value, are
being worked. Our limestone is already
known and used in every State OF the Union.
The iron produced at the Katahdin Iron
Works Is of the best quality. The ice and
granite business gives employment to thou
sands, and there is hardly a large city In the
Union but what has some structure which Is
memorial to the good quality OF her granite;
and all cities during our summer months are
consuming the ice from our northern rivers.
Maine Is also pushinglahead In its railroad
improvements. Already great tranScOnti-
mental line is being built across its entire
width, giving direct and short route to the
great West and Pacific coast; and capitalists
are now surveying road from Skowhegan
up the valley Of the Kennebec, to strike the
waters of Moosehead Lake at Its outlet, so
that you gentlemen who are proud Of the
State of your nativity can breakfast at your
own homes in Boston and dine by the waters
of that grand lake. Aroosto0k. that growing
county of the North, is clamoring for direct
line, the building of which is inevitable. Our
summer resorts have become worldwide in
their attractions. Bar Harbor is today the
peer of Newport, and Ii is destined to be-
come the great watering place Of this conti-
nent. In our midst the speculator is finding
ample opportunity for investment, either in
stock or lands, and every village now boasts
of its millionaire.
With our three thousand miles of coast,
with climate which, despite all that may
be said against it, is health-giving. with the
push and energy which our people neces-
sarily inherit with our agricultural inter-
ests; with the close railroad connections in
to which we are to be brought with the Ca
the Dominion Of Canada upon our borders is
making, under the protective system which
the administration of Sir John Macdonald
has given 1t, Maine is sure to progress in
every direction, and, as each year rolls by, it
will be truer to its motto, and better State
to live in. Those of her sons who have
sought their fame in other fields and in 9TH
er states, will have no reason to feel ashamed
of the progress which their mother State Is
making, and those of her sons who remain,
content to fight the battle Of life within the
borders of the State which gave them birth,
will never have reason to regret their choice